What are the most compact Real Time-Strategy Games?
This is an interesting question. One good place to start would be the gargantuan catalogue of rather simple RTS flash games and the like. There are many sites that have 100s of such titles, and it would not be too difficult to build the framework for these types of games(there are open source tools that can help as well).

As far as "real" mainstream games, the pickings are rather slim for simple benchmark RTS titles. One that comes to mind is Rome: Total War. At least in exhibition, there is not much to strategize over besides who to attack and from where. Also, as I assume this relates to starcraft, one good simplified predecessor to starcraft would be the Dune series, and in particular Dune 2.